When Walter Clayton Jr. backpedaled, passing up a layup for the go-ahead 3-pointer to give Florida basketball the lead at long last, all Terrence McGriff saw around him at the Chase Center in San Francisco were smiles and cheers of relief.
Yet, the only emotion the Bartow basketball head coach could register was tears. Those emotions came from knowing how hard Clayton worked to reach this moment.
Four years ago, Clayton held just one Division I offer from an in-state school.
Last Saturday, with the entire nation watching, the Polk County native literally put the Gators on his back and carried the squad past Texas Tech 84-79 in the Elite Eight. Now, he’s taken UF to the sport’s biggest stage for the first time in 11 years. There at the Final Four in San Antonio, he’ll be greeted by National Player of the Year frontrunners Johni Broome and Cooper Flagg, but Clayton Jr. won’t be looking up to them. He’ll be their peer.
“He's had to go from the ground up, and I was so proud that I broke down with tears of joy because of his journey,” McGriff said. “He earned the right to take that shot and make that shot.”
A risky move
When Clayton Jr. transferred from Lake Wales to Bartow, he held offers from Florida, Florida State and Alabama, just to name a few. His college future seemed set… if he wanted to play football, that is.
Clayton was a four-star safety prospect. He took a visit to Gainesville, where his friend from Polk County – former Florida defensive lineman and current Chicago Bear Gervon Dexter – played.
Clayton also played basketball at Lake Wales, and he decided to change directions. He didn’t want to be in the sun. He didn’t want to follow family members before him onto the gridiron. He wanted to chart his own path in the sport he loved.
“I enjoyed basketball way more. It wasn’t fun to go out there and practice football,” Clayton said. “Obviously if you don’t practice it, other guys are going to get ahead of you.”
With the change came a transfer to Bartow to play for McGriff – a coaching legend who already had won a state championship when Clayton arrived. Upon arriving, Clayton asked McGriff what he needed to accomplish to receive college attention in basketball. Given his 6-foot-3, 185-pound frame, the coach gave him a ...
